


In the Well

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Dark, Gen, Psychological Horror, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bells and footfalls and darkness and fear. And she can't stop what's coming her way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Well

She can hear the church bells in her head. She tells herself there are  
no church bells, only the sounds of the motor running and the noise of  
the road under the tires. But her bells ring so loud, like it was Easter  
Sunday, Judgement Sunday, bright and cold and endless, tolling her life,  
maybe signaling her death. She can hear them as clear as day, ringing–

Ding dong ding dong ding ding ding dong– ding-dong-bell, pussy’s in the  
well–

Who put her in? Put her in this trunk in the dark and the cold the dark  
and the cold the dark the cold the dark cold dark– she bites back a  
frightened, hysterical sob. She won’t be afraid. She’s not afraid. She’s  
an adult, after all. Children are afraid of the dark and she’s supposed  
to protecting the children, isn’t she, protecting the world against the  
predators and monsters wearing button-down shirts. It’s her job to  
defeat the bad guys, not to cry about them.

Fine job she’s doing, too, thinks, shivering in the darkness, feeling  
weak and sick in the cold airlessness. She has a gun and a shitload of  
FBI training and a clever mind, but she can’t seem to stop anyone.  
Instead she collects monsters the way her sister used to collect phone  
numbers. Shivering and weary, she tallies her monsters and refuses to  
cry.

Monsters in sweatshirts who won’t let Them take him again, oh no, and  
monsters who would kill her not for herself, but just for her red hair–  
and she almost cries then, being trapped in a car trunk just because her  
hair is a pretty Irish red and her mother had begged that they go  
together and get a manicure just the week before. But she’s a grown  
woman, stronger than most women, and most men, too. No tears, even if  
the rocking and bumping around in the darkness remind her of the last  
time she was–

The church bells start to ring again. Why are the church bells ringing?  
It’s not Sunday and it’s been four or five years since she’s been at a  
church except for Christmas and Easter. There’s no sense at all to it,  
none at all. But what sort of sense is there in a world like this? It’s  
a place full of irrational, dark shadows that grasp at her like the  
hands that put her in the trunk, tying her hands together, putting a  
handkerchief in her mouth so she wouldn’t scream, stealing her voice.

She struggles with the ropes at her wrists again, feeling the smooth  
nylon fiber rub painfully against her wrists and it’s deja vu all over  
again, tied up in the trunk and the devil is controlled and directed by  
his red right hand and she’s alone and the church bells keep ringing.  
She has to breathe in slowly so she doesn’t scream or cry. Much good it  
would do her, alone in a tiny car trunk that feels like a coffin. Nobody  
would hear her. The monster has her voice and she’s the pussy in the  
well, thrashing around, drowning, for someone’s twisted pleasure.

Who put her in? Little Duane Barry, little Donnie Pfaster– and she  
wonders, not for the first time, why her. Eyes closed, teeth set in her  
lower lip, she thinks this to a silent God, the whys of the situation.  
Once is coincidence, twice– if only the bells would stop ringing, ding  
dong bell, in the still of the night. If it could only be a dream, she  
could stop asking why.

She twists her hands again and the sting of rope against skin reminds  
her this is no nightmare. This is real. She’s trapped in a car trunk  
that could be her tomb or a portal to something worse. Knowing who’s  
sitting behind the wheel of the late-model white Ford, it’s going to be  
much, much worse. With her eyes closed, alone with her mental church  
bells, she can see her future if someone doesn’t get her out of this  
well. If Mulder doesn’t get her out of this well–

Cold hands. She had felt them on her before, while she groggily looked  
up from the steering wheel. Her vision had been blurred. If she had been  
just a little more alert, she might have been able to get away, get to  
her gun, but he had looked like something else. Something not of this  
earth, but something strangely, sickeningly familiar. And her breath had  
caught in her throat as she, stunned and frightened, froze, a deer in  
the headlights and by the time she recognized the man as Pfaster, he had  
her pinned against the seatback–

then those reptilian hands on her skin–

god make him stop make him stop, she prayed as her stomach turned in  
terror–

wrapping a lock of bright red hair around his filthy finger–

the sensation of it tickling her cheek and she couldn’t move a  
millimeter, not one stray breath escaped her– she sat like an ice  
sculpture and stared forward hoping she would melt–

and she couldn’t cry, no tears no tears– he might kill her right there  
with that knife, let her blood trickle onto her suit, waiting for her to  
die so he could take her hair, sniff it, run her hair against his cheek  
and smile–

she had wanted to vomit then, but remained ice, ice that couldn’t melt  
as he tied her hands together, admonished her to stay quiet, and thrown  
her into the trunk, a proud new acquisition.

The future is coming for her. He is waiting to get them off the road and  
she can see him in the upcoming moments. His eyes will be alight with  
pleasure as the other hand fondles a knife, waiting only for the water  
to get deep and cold– oh God. Oh God, oh God, she whispers to herself,  
sick to her stomach, freezing with fear and the cold in the Minnesota  
winter air.

She closes her eyes very tight and the bells toll, marking her  
heartbeat, marking time before her important parts can be cut away,  
leaving the real, corrupt woman behind, dead. His thoughts are in her  
head and she wants to die now, die before he can touch her again with  
his sick thoughts or his cold, cold hands.

The car hits a fierce bump and she’s slammed against something hard, and  
before she can stop it, she cries out and tears of pain slide down her  
cheeks, prompting a rush of sobbing as she thinks of dying in a cold  
bath as a demon leers over her head, waiting for her body to still so he  
can defile it. She doesn’t want to die, she doesn’t want to be in  
another trunk waiting for a great white light–

She wants to get out, out out out, kick this motherfucker in the  
shortribs when he comes around to the trunk, mild and meek and utterly  
deadly. Her body is swimming with adrenaline, shivering with it even as  
the tears sting her cheeks with salt and make the scrape on her chin  
burn. Her hands pull against the rope, doing nothing, as something  
quivering and idiotic panics in her, thrashing in fear as icy as  
well-water.

Don’t let me die, she thinks, kicking and thrashing and sobbing, please  
please God please Daddy please Mulder someone please, don’t let me die.  
Not tonight. Her sobs tear against the air, in counterpoint to her  
bells. Please please please, she thinks, shuddering as the car rumbles  
and bounces towards eternity. I don’t want to die, please!

Reality hits her like another bump on the road as the car starts  
slowing.

Nobody’s going to save her but her, she realizes as the car turns and  
she bumps her head against the metal again. She can’t count on anyone,  
maybe not even God, and she can’t stop that trunk from opening and  
Donnie being there and wanting her for her bright red hair. But she can  
be brave. She can fight this time, because there’s no way in hell she’s  
just going to roll over and give up the ghost. Oh hell no. She didn’t  
just come back from God knows where and fight a mystery disease to let  
this be the end. Not tonight, even as her fingers get numb from the cold  
and the way the ropes strangle her circulation.

Make the bells stop, she tells herself, slowing her breathing down. Just  
make them stop. It’s in your head, it’s your fear, you can stop it. It’s  
cold, you’re afraid, you’re locked in a trunk and you can’t breathe but  
if you don’t make the bells go away you’ll be paralyzed by the fear and  
it’ll be the bright light and the cold water and this time you won’t  
find yourself in a bed somewhere. She forces her gasps to quiet, to get  
still, to think and push that fear down, somewhere beyond her  
fingertips.

When he comes for you, let him, she thinks. Let him take you in the  
house, wherever. Somewhere you can see. Somewhere that’s not icy and  
cold and full of tools he can use to beat your head in if you struggle.  
Discretion is the better part of valor. Her breathing gets calmer even  
as her heartbeat continues to race and a few stray tears remain,  
cooling, on her cheeks. She’s going to fight, to protect the world from  
the monsters that prey on the innocent. And if she’s the innocent–  
well? She has still been trained to combat those who would victimize  
her. Her fight won’t be in vain even if it’s to survive.

The future is not white light and the cold, reptilian fingers of the  
thing driving the car, she thinks to herself, closing her eyes, but not  
tightly. The future is unwritten. She’s not the pussy in the well. The  
bells are only in her head and they’re not ringing for a funeral. She’s  
strong. She can be brave. She has to be brave. There will be no more  
tears, just the whisper of her own breathing and the beating of her own  
heart as she waits for the roar of the motor to stop. stop. stop…


End file.
